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Saturday, November 27, 2010

I spent yesterday evening in the ER. I mean, it had been about a month since my last visit. Clearly, I was due. We walked in and the triage nurse looked at Jackson in the wheel chair and asked him, "So, what happened?" He explained. "Well, I was climbing up on the swing set and I grabbed the rope that's hanging from our tree and I jumped off so I could swing from the rope, but my foot got caught in another rope that's attached to the climbing wall and when I jumped off my leg was tangled up and I fell. The nurse looked at me, eyebrows raised. I kinda shrugged. "At least he didn't try to skateboard off the top this time." Another nurse standing nearby, stopped what he was doing and looked up, an expression of half-shock, half-awe on his face. The medical professional in him was thinking how dangerous such an endeavour would be. But the guy in him was thinking, Oh yeah, wicked cool!

We were led to a room where a nurse comes up and says, "Hey, weren't you guys in that room over there just last month?"

"Uh yeah," I said, feeling somehow guilty. I was wondering if this would be the time that DCFS came to take him away. "So, uh, shouldn't you notify DCFS about this? I mean, maybe they should take him away from me. You know, to make sure he doesn't break any more bones on my watch." At the nurse's blank stare, I quickly amended, "Kidding! Just kidding. I don't want him taken away. I mean, one day I'll probably be able to say that I'm the proud parent of a guy who stars on the show Jackass. And really, what more could a parent want.

So, the nurse assessed him, starting with his head and neck. When she felt the back of his neck, he said, "Ouch." Everyone went into freak-out mode at that point. They grabbed a collar for him, gently rolled him onto a board and ordered xrays of his neck and spine.

I objected at first. "Really, it's only his knee that hurts. He didn't hurt his neck."

They insisted that he could have a life-threatening spinal injury and after scaring Jackson with the details of what it would be like to live as a paraplegic, they whisked him off for xrays.

A bit later, the doctor came in and asked, "Hey, weren't you guys here just a couple weeks ago?"

"Uh yeah, in fact, I just paid the bill for his broken nose. Think I'll ever get the half of the bill his dad owes?" Everyone in the room fell to the floor, laughing over my totally hysterical joke.

After taking a look at the xrays, they determined that Jackson's neck was fine (surprise) and his knee was only sprained and bruised. They wrapped his knee and put him on crutches for the week. The doctor took two and a half hours explaining how to use crutches. Jackson piped up and informed him, "I already know how to use crutches. I was on crutches about two years ago when I got stitches on the bottom of my foot.

"Oh yeah," I said, "I'd forgotten about that one!"

The doctor, who had no sense of humor, was annoying, and said "okay" at least thirty-eight times during the evening, continued to explain the finer points of safe crutch usage. An hour into his lecture, I stopped him and asked, "Um, instead of telling him how to walk up the stairs, could you tell him that crutches shouldn't be used as a weapon on his siblings? Oh and maybe also mention that it would probably be a bad idea to pole vault with them? Thanks!"Sooo, any bets on what his next injury will be? Because you know there will be a next time. There's always a next time. And it generally involves a stupid plan gone awry.

12 comments:

I assume footbrawl season is over? Often the sports coaches tell the kids on their teams not to take risks with other sports. I know the basketbrawl players at my high school in snow country weren't allowed to ski. Encurage Jackson to go out for basketbrawl -- it's probubbly safer than the stuff he gets into at home.

Yikes, well if you go to the ER enough more times they will get your sense of humor. And with having a brood of kids you will be visiting the ER more often even more so with STUNT MAN Jackson. Glad it wasnt even worse then it was.

Dawn, with six kids, you should probably have a Doctor on retainer at the ER so you'd get preferential treatment...and a fast in and out! I'm pretty sure you know how crutches work and Jax is probably devising ways to torture the other kids with his new instruments! Keep us posted!

I have 4 boys so I know where you're at. One time my kids built a ramp that they had to climb up on the shed roof to get to the top of. Then they were riding a plastic alligator seesaw that was the youngests down the ramp. Safe wasn't it? We were in the ER with someone getting stitches every week for a month once.

It's too bad that hospitals and doctors don't have "frequent patient" rewards programs. Between you and your six kids, I bet you would have already earned at least one free ER co-pay! I hope that it's at least a few months before anyone in your family steps inside a hospital!

I have to tell you a funny story about my brother (who was just like Jackson, and is now 47 and a pillar of society, so there's hope!) When he was five, he had surgery for a hernia and an undescended testicle. He came home moaning and doubled over. Mom tenderly tucked him onto the sofa and went to get him a treat. Looked out the back window to see that same brother balanced on one foot on top of the six foot fence. Right before he fell off. Heh.

He survived, and honestly, he's the one I want to take care of my kids if anything happens to me. Jackson is going to be awesome someday. You both just need to live long enough to see it.

Reminds me of my daughter....who just got a cast taken off of her arm....her right arm (she's right-handed). She fell off of her scooter because she was trying to see how fast she could go...with one leg way up in the air in front of her & her eyes closed. She hit a crack in the sidewalk....the crack won.